Reasons for hospitalization and in-hospital mortality in adults with systemic sclerosis: Analysis of the National Inpatient Sample.

Objective: Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune condition with significant morbidity and mortality despite modern medical therapies. The goal of this investigation was to comprehensively analyze all reasons for hospitalization and in-hospital death of systemic sclerosis patients.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of the adult systemic sclerosis hospitalizations from the 2016-2018 National Inpatient Sample. We included patients with a primary or secondary diagnosis of systemic sclerosis and compared them to the group without the disease. The incidence of inpatient death and total hospitalization charges were recorded along with the most frequent principal diagnoses for systemic sclerosis hospitalizations and mortality categorized into subgroups.

Results: There were 94,515 adult systemic sclerosis hospitalizations recorded in the 2016-2018 National Inpatient Sample database. Systemic sclerosis patients had higher inpatient mortality compared to the non-systemic sclerosis group (4.5% vs 2.2%, respectively, p < 0.0001), were more likely to be female (84% vs 58%, p < 0.0001), had a longer mean length of stay (6.1 vs 4.7 days, p < 0.0001), and greater mean total hospital charges ($70,018 vs $53,556, p < 0.0001). Sepsis, unspecified organism (A41.9) was the most common principal diagnosis for both hospitalized and deceased systemic sclerosis patients. Cardiovascular diagnoses (21.9%) were the most common reasons for hospitalization and infectious (28%)-for in-hospital death.

Conclusion: Our analysis of the National Inpatient Sample database from 2016 to 2018 showed that infections and cardiovascular diseases were a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among hospitalized systemic sclerosis patients. Sepsis was the most frequent specific diagnosis for both hospitalization and inpatient deaths. These results stress the importance of early recognition of life-threatening infections in this patient population.